Crossing the border with Blue Jays beat reporter Jordan Bastian.

Coming soon?

TORONTO — One lingering questions around the Blue Jays right now is, “When will third baseman Scott Rolen be coming back from the disabled list?” According to general manager J.P. Ricciardi, Rolen could rejoin Toronto soon.

It would seem to make sense that, if the Blue Jays fell completely out of the playoff hunt, that the club would consider just telling Rolen to take the season’s last month off to rest his fatigued left shoulder, getting an early start to the offseason to come back at full strength for Spring Training.

Ricciardi shot down that suggestion today.

“He’s feeling better,” Ricciardi said. “Actually, we had a good report yesterday and he’s looking forward to coming back. I think we’ll get him back sooner than later.”

Following this series against Boston, the Jays have an off-day on Monday and open a set against the Rays on the road on Tuesday. Rolen is currently rehabbing in Florida and will probably stop by the Trop to visit with the Jays during that series. So, to be continued…

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56 Comments

Marcum to Syracuse is just plain dumb he had a bad day,This guy can pitch and we will need him to make a good showing,I think JP is in panic mode if he thinks you can’t help him keep his job your gone.

welikeroy-I posted this for you on the previous thread:
Just so you know, with Wells in the lineup our record this year is 32-40. With him out of the lineup our record is 30-20, so your assumption of this team being better with him in the lineup isn’t backed by the facts. Right now Vernon is ranked 20th in MLB center fielders.

Why would anyone ever option Marcum to AAA and recall Parrish to take his place? Parrish on his very best day can’t hold Marcum’s jock strap. This smells like trouble to me, what are we not being told?

Cecil has had 4 starts in AAA and only 1 has been a quality start. He has been struggling with an era of 4.91. He starts today, so hopefully he starts settling in. One way or the other, I doubt he gets a spot start up here for quite some time.

Rickie Romero has had the reverse experience in that he had 3 good starts and then got pounded in the last two games. His problem is BB’s with 14 in 28 innings.

Brian Wolfe looked like he was making a nice conversion to starter, but got clobbered in a start a week ago, so I think his progress is delayed.

The long and short of it is the cupboard is bare in AAA as one might expect when John Parrish is our best answer..

indigo-somehow I don’t think that’s the issue. Before this last start Marcum gave us 3 high quality starts in a row and won all 3 games.
There’s more to this story than what we’re being told so far-that’s for sure.

I am not devious so I don’t look for ulterior motives or try to second guess JP’s delusional mind . Maybe just maybe , they sent Marcum down to find his control etc . They just did the same thing to Litsch and he seems to found those adjustments .

bosoxbrian
Don’t look now but that “no name kid ” from last year is putting the hurt on your sox…lol…….

indigo-think about it. No one sends down their number 3 starter for having one bad game. In the 3 previous starts before yesterday, Marcum went 18 innings, gave up 4 runs and won all 3 games.
Litsch was different, he struggled for quite some time before being sent down. There’s another shoe to drop on this Marcum situation.

He has had more than 1 bad game and he hasn’t gone deep into many games. He has had control issues since coming off the DL. I don’t see this as a bad thing . Jays season is over , they are now in the position of spoiler. Gaston wants to see what he has and what he needs for next year . I would prefer to look at this as the glass half full instead of half empty . There is enough pessimism on this blog as it is ……..lol…..

I wish they were my Sox. I would be living large, lol. I have seen many pitchers this year make the Red Sox hitters look bad. No surprise here. My fellow Pinellas County resident also known as the no name kid is doing well. Boston will be lucky if they make the playoffs. If they do make the playoffs, an early exit.

Buchholz pitched that no hitter in early Sept. last year. It might have been the worst thing that happened to him. Expectations were very high for him coming into this season. Perhaps too high. This could be the best thing that ever happened to him. A nice kick in the a–. lol. I’m not sure how he’ll like the Days Inn and Motel 6 in those A.A. towns. lol.

He probably pitched the no hitter because he was scared to death of the Boston fans……lol…. Like I said earlier Halladay got sent down 3 times and came back as one of the best pitchers in baseball . I don’t wish that for Buccholz , j/k , but maybe Dice-K can teach him his houdini act . It will be a long game tomorrow with Dice pitching

It will be a longggggggg game for sure with Dice-K on the hill. No doubt. Dice-K is a sportswriters nightmare. Jordan wants to get home a.s.a.p. but with Dice-K on the hill. Mrs. Bastian shouldn’t get dinner started until 10:00 p.m. tomm. night. LOL!!

What is amazing is he doesn’t usually pitch more than 5 innings , tops out his pitch count , walks every third or fourth batter and gets out of it with no runs …..lol….. Somebody needs to check and see if he is a “phenom” in those stats. I hope they serve breakfast after the game …lol

I’ll buy you breakfast, lol. Very rarely does Dice-K go anymore than 5 innings. As you said a high pitch count. With the bases loaded this year, hitters are 0 for 13 against him. He likes to walk the tightrope. Jim Palmer said the other night, living on the edge. Boston with the posting fee spent over 100 million on him. Not money well spent yet.

Sox are using their whole BP in this game . Dice may have to go 5.1 maybe even 6 innings tomorrow to give them some rest …….lol… I believe we had this discussion last yr about the worst signing Burnett or Dice-K ……hmmmm…..Burnett was cheaper and he gets the job done quicker.

gsumner,
I was just saying the Jays have better record with him in the lineup since he got off his latest injury.
Sure he is ranked 20th, because he has been injured most the season, as I previously stated. That is a misleading statistic. Being ranked 20th is actually pretty good for the amount he has been out.
Vernon Wells is great player for us and we are better team with him in the lineup, no question, his injury problems are what really hurt. The record with him in the lineup is unfortunate, but no way are you going to tell that substituting him in the lineup for Brad Wilkerson, Inglett, Mench makes us a better team.
There are a lot more reasons why our record was like that with him in the lineup (e.g. bad RISP, terrible hitting by other guys). Also, one player cannot make that much of a difference, baseball is a team sport.
Your assumption that having an injured Vernon Wells is better than having him healthy one is false. We are now getting more production from a 3rd outfield position, that we were not getting with Brad Wilkerson etc.. What makes Vernon Wells a bad player for the Jays, is the fact that he is injured so frequently and he will always be that way.
Sorry about the timing. Hard arguing this on a day where he is 5 for 5 with 2 homeruns, but I still would have made the same arguement if he was 0 for 5 with 3 strikeouts.

Do you have a McDonald’s in Toronto? Do you really have that American crap they call fast food? lol. Actually McDonald’s usually has a solid breakfast, it’s their other stuff that can kill you. lol. Would you care to join us Garry? It’s on me. I can use all my McDonald’s gift certificate’s I got as a kid. LOL!!! Actually if I recall you have McDonald’s at The Rogers Center. I went to Sox–Jays series back in August of 1990, when it was called Skydome. It was the first time I got a quarter pounder and then went back to my seats. We sat along the third base line. I was quite impressed with the city of Toronto. Very clean and the people were very nice. If it was a warm climate, I could live there. I’m sure you guys are very thankful I do not live there. LOL!!!

I agree with welikeroy about Vernon and if you think about it Vernon’s only been injury prone the last 2 seasons. It could just be coincidence and I wouldn’t be surprised if he is healthy for the majority of next year. Not too long ago people were questioning whether Roy Halladay is injury prone and now people are praising his endurance and ability to bounce back (the ball off his head as an example). Hey if Burnett can have a healthy season Vernon can too. Tomorrow’s game should be a lot of fun.

Why is Eckstein not playing? His records past and present shows his performance higher than McDonald’s past history
and present on”ON BASE PERCENTAGE, SLUGGING PERCENT , and BATTING AVERAGE according to TORONT’s STATS. Watching ECKSTEIN since he began in the Major with the Angels he is not as fancy as McDonald but he has made
many outstanding plays. He now has 9 errors but some of the errors were on a wet playing field and throws on double play balls have been directly at Overbay and one bounce
about 6 feet in front of the first baseman Overbay dropped the ball which was knee high and not a trapped ball. Another time Overbay took his eye away from the ball and it hit him belt high. Eckstein got the error. Also the game the Game that Halliday pitched before the All-Star Game. Eckstein made a spectular play by diving and knocking the ball down preventing a run from scoring, according to the visiting game announcers, Fine the Official Scorer gave the batter a base hit. However, the next batter hit a home-run off Halliday and the Official Scorer changed his ruling on the previous play and gave Eckstein an error so that the three runs scored on the Home-run would be UNEARNED RUNS on Halliday’s record. The radio announcer’s from the visiting team questioned this change and said it was outrageous that the Official scorer would do this even it took a hit away from their team’s batter. McDonald’s records fielding and batting according your stat record of him past and present
is worst than a rookie coming into the game. The Toronto Fans didnt even give Eckstein a chance but BOOED Him from the start, As you know but it looks like your GM Ricarrdi has given orders to the Mgr Gaston to bench Eckstein. I would like to know, why? Here is a Guy that won 2 World Series Rings, was the Most Valuable Player in the third World Series he played and in 2007 Batted for the average 309. I believe there is an investigator somewhere in your area specializing
on discrimination of this type, Imagine a proven major league player getting 4.5 million dollar salary sitting on the bench not playing just to have a player with a poor baseball record taking his place. OH! Eckstein also made the All Star Team in the past as well as the INTERNATIONAL ALL STARS with the Baseball Star Mr. Bonds. A response would be appreciated since I am an 86 year old minor leaguer and former Varsity Baseball Coach of a well-known large University and my life span is rather limited. Thank You.

We should feel for Brett Cecil tonight. In an earlier post I stated he struggled in his first 3 starts at AAA Syracuse and had only one quality start of 4. That quality start was his last outing on August 17th, with a line of 7 innings, 2 hits, 1 bb, 6k’s and no earned runs to lower his era to 4.91.

Well tonight, Cecil did one better. His line was 7 innings, 2 bb’s, 5k’s, NO HITS and no earned runs to lower his era to 3.55; almost a perfect 7 innings. He turned it over to the pen after 86 pitches of which 55 were strikes leading 3-0.

The bullpen gave up 4 runs in the 9th, Syracuse scored 2 more in the bottom for the win, but unfortunately for Cecil, it was a 7 inning, no hit, tough luck no decision.

As of tonight, Cecil has given up no runs in his last 14 innings with only 2 hits. Not too shabby for a 22 year old, we drafted in 2007, who started the season in A+ Dunedin.

whiteyr,
In all the games I have watched both live and on TV, never have I seen or heard anyone BOO David Eckstein.
As a Blue Jay fan , we have watched John McDonald make some pretty amazing defensive plays . I agree Eckstein is a better offensive player but I don’t agree that he is a better defensive player . The MLB Official Scorer can’t change a ruling just to give Halladay or any other pitcher less earned runs, but I believe they review the play and do change rulings based on such reviews. You seem to think the Jays and their fans are out to get Eckstein , nothing could be further from the truth . Jays need great players like any other team . As for Riccardi telling Gaston what to do , I don’t see that happening . I think Gaston is looking at all the players and the chemistry between them, to see what he has to work with and what he needs to make this team a winner. We ,as fans understand your frustration , we all have players we would like to see play more but we don’t make those decisions and therefore can’t give you the answer you are looking for . We can only give you our point of view . I hope this has helped but I may I suggest you write the Blue Jays to ask your question. Best of luck to you and take care .

whiteyr
I can tell from your post, you’re a empassioned fan of David Eckstein and that’s great to see. However, I think you have a few things wrong and are not aware of other issues.
First, John Macdonald is a fan favorite here, because of his defensive abilities which turn into high light reels every time he plays. He is viewed as the finest or one of the finest defensive short stops in MLB.

Few Blue Jays fans wanted Eckstein signed as a result which likely explains why Eckstein is booed-if he is, because I’m not aware fans boo anyone other than A-Rod. As you probably appreciate, when your team is loosing like ours for the last few years, high light reel plays provided by Macdonald entertain the fans and it is an entertainment business more than a sport; hence the fan favorite. So as disapointed as you are in JP, I can assure you that your disapointment isn’t as much as the many fans who didn’t want Eckstein signed in the first place. In our view it was a total waste of $4.5 million dollars.

You are dead wrong about your suggestion of any discrimination. JP does not make daily playing decisions, that’s done by Cito Gaston-a black man who, as a professional puts the best 9 guys on the field each day to win that game. Cito, I’m sure, has experienced a lot of discrimination in his life, but there is NO WAY, Cito practises it. And although I am not a JP fan, no one would ever convince me JP is a racist, because if he was he wouldn’t have signed Eckstein or Cito, so think about how silly that inuendo is under examination.

What Cito and staff have managed to do is turn Macdonald into a pull hitter, with the believe it would improve his hitting. Well guess what it has, to the point that in the last 10 games played by each player Macdonald is hitting for better average than Eckstein at .289 versus .286. The other funny thing is Macdonald has developed a knack for hitting with risp with 2 outs along the way and now leads the team at .353BA and his overall hitting with risp is rising almost daily.

As you can appreciate, with Macdonald hitting better and superior defensive skills, Cito should be questioned if he didn’t play him at short stop every day.

Personally, I wish David Eckstein well in his career and if you review a few blogs back, you will note I made a very favorable posting regarding him and the situation with the youngster in Fenway. Clearly David is a gentleman and a class act and for that he gets my respect.
That being said, I still believe it was a mistake to sign him and I really hope he isn’t signed for next year.

gsumner,
I know that im jumping the gun a bit on Cecil, but with all the hype from Baseball America and the way he has moved up so fast this year, I personally, can’t wait to see him in a Jays uniform pitching.
It is probably not best for him or the team, but pitchers usually can make quicker strides through the minors.
Snider is also a guy getting a lot of hype, again Baseball America, and the way he has been playing (thanks for keeping us all updated by the way, saves me from occasionally checking out MILB.com).
There are definately some exciting things happening in our farm system and I just can’t wait to see some of these guys.

welikeroy
Although, I’m as ancious as you are to see Cecil here, I would hope the Jays are a bit cautious with him and send him home after the Syracuse season. As you know I’m generally pressing to get all these kids up here, but Cecil is different.
The reason is, Cecil was a closer in his college days and a reliever last year. We turned him into a starter late last year, but he only pitched 49 innings which was a career high for him. This year to date he’s pitched 113 innings and will likely have another 3-4 starts which would get him up to 130-140 innings. That is a big adjustment for a young arm, and I just hope we don’t press him and cause injury. If he finishes strong, we might see him in the mix for the rotation next spring, although again erroring on caution, it might make more sense to keep him at AAA all next year and complete the transition. He has a devastating slider, low to mid 90’s fastball and a changeup in the works. It would be nice to get an update from the Jays on how he’s coming along on his 3rd pitch, which would give us some insight as to how effective he will be up here.

welikeroy
Snider looks like he’s adjusted to AAA, but we have two other kids with good bats also on the horizon, 1st baseman Brian Dopirak and catcher J.P Arrenciba, both of which are in AA New Hampshire. Arenciba, a 2007 draft has risen over Robinson Diaz ( for me at least) as our number 1 catching prospect, and is going to be special. So far the stats for the season for all 3 are as follows:

Interesting in that Arencibia is the only player to date in the entire organization with 100+ rbi’s-in 118 games, no less. About the only knocks on Arencibia is he doesn’t take many walks and still struggles hitting with risp at .246, but he is looking like the next power catcher. Personally I think he should be called up in September. I’m sure Cito and staff can do a quicker and faster job of”finishing him off” than sending him to the AFL.
I would like to see Dopriak sent to the AFL. Although he’s had a great season, he has had some up and down years in the minors and it’d be nice to see how he performs at a higher level.

Just a general comment … I am getting tired of logging onto MLB.Com and finding the lead story is once again about the Yankees (of course), the Red Sox (of course), the Cubs (of course) and the Mets.

HEY MLB. There are 28 other franchises out there. Maybe the NY Post can play favourites but not MLB.com.

Example, today the Blue Jays are playing the Red Sox a day after the Jays pounded on the Sox. So is the lead story about the Jays and 15 game winner AJ Burnett? No its about DiceK.
Which is’t to say that DceK isn’t a story but here is a chance to showcase a team other than one of he above listed.

No question, we have a lot of talent down in the minors right now. I know that they are all very young guys, with the exception of Dopirak who is 25 and has been the minors since 2002. All the hype right now is coming from Snider, Cecil and a little bit from Arencibia, Scott Campbell, (even though he would have to do some climbing to get into our infield).
I’d love to see Arencibia up here, but he is still very young and its a lot to ask a catcher to make the climb from AA so quickly. I agree that he does look more promising than Diaz, but Diaz is also almost 3 years older. Regardless, however, if Arencibia is the Jays catcher of the future then he would definately be worthy of a September call up, and we could certainly use one of those guys as a backup catcher right now with a disgruntled Greg Zaun.
Again, these guys are very young, with the exception of Dopirak, if you can call 25 old, lol.
Cooper, Jeroloman (if we need any more young catchers) and also look nice. Romero has not been aweful this year, if you can call 6-8 with a 4.88 ERA between AA and AAA not aweful. It is actually a step up for him, the way he has struggled in the minors to date.

Thank you for your rapid response to my inquiry on David Eckstein. He went thru hard times coming up being 5’7″ tall. Eventhough he was a walk- on at the University of Florida he achieved twice in being the College World Series MVP, he broke several records at UF. He was unable to make local Seminole Community College baseball team in Sanford, Fl. even he was a top High School baseball player. When the Scouts assigned him up for Boston Red Sox, he was awarded the most valuable player in the Red Sox Minor League Clubs (A & AA) then they brought him up to Triple (AAA) (Rhode Island) then they would not give him a chance in the majors and waived him to Edmonton Club (AAA) when Anaiheim Angels (L.A. Angels)
Manager Sousa signed him up from being a second baseman to the Shortstop position and his past records shows his high and excellent accomplishments. During all of these past days he was an “A” scholar eventhough his Father was a very sick person. I agree that McDonald is a smooth fielder but to get to the majors you have to be an offensive ball player. From your Statistical Table and McDonald’s
History for the past years from Cleveland to the present,
his batting average is really low. As to the FANS appreciating a baseball player you might recall the great greeting Eckstein received from the LA Angels fans when the Jays played their latest game in Anaheim Angels. Thank You Wishing You High Success in you work. OH! Gaston didn’t even give Eckstein a chance to play against the Angels. What a Cold Hearted Manager if he has some thing he dislikes about a player. Enjoy reading your writings.

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